Sales is a tough job, on that we can all agree. But there are a number of resources emerging to make it significantly smarter, well organized, effective, and dare we say it – enjoyable. SalesLoft is one of those resources, and we are proud to be partnering with them as part of their new Sales Development Cloud.

Just ahead of their Rainmaker conference, headlined by Gary Vaynerchuk, we sat down with Kyle Porter, SalesLoft’s CEO, to get his take on where the world of sales development is going. And guess what? That world is moving in some surprising directions and we are in exciting times.

If you’re coming to Rainmaker, we’d love to meet you in person! You can find us at booth #2 and on stage, presenting in the ‘How The Hell Do You Get More Leads’ panel.

What do you see as the biggest challenge SDRs face?

The biggest challenge is having the right mindset. There’s two types of salespeople: those that wake up every morning thinking they’re salespeople and those that think about how they can help solve problems for their buyers. Those people – those consultative, business solution experts – are the ones that will do the best and make the most impact.

You’re about to launch an ecosystem of integrations called Sales Development Cloud, can you tell us more about it?

Very recently, a number of organizations have built highly effective software products that support the top-of-the-funnel, revenue driving functions in accomplishing their goal: convert their ideal customer profile into qualified opportunities and pipeline. There hasn’t, as yet, been a single place to access the best of them. We think we’ve created that with Sales Development Cloud.

After SalesLoft launched Cadence, which optimizes our customers’ connections with their buyers through email, phone, and social touch points, we realized there was so much more they needed to do to in order to be successful.

One of the most important pieces was to fill their funnel with great logos, and great contact information on their potential buyers. That’s why DiscoverOrg is now part of our Sales Development Cloud.

We’ve gathered several best-in-class resources to optimize the sales development process, such as call recording/analysis software, psychological profiling, and intelligence to give information to sellers as they contact their buyers. It’s a single platform that allows sellers around the world the opportunity to identify and connect with prospects in order to efficiently qualify them and convert them over to pipeline.

Can you say more about the psychological prospecting?

Crystal is an intelligence engine that analyzes your contacts and then fits them into one of 74 psychological behavioral profiles.

Armed with Crystal Know’s nuanced and specific recommendations on how to approach the buyer, down to the specific words they’ll like best, those involved in prospecting can employ an empathetic approach, which can yield significant dividends.

What do you see as the future of SDR tools?

For SDR field, it’s still the early innings of the ball game.

What we’re seeing on the front end is a dramatic increase in the quality and quantity of intelligence on companies – the things that DiscoverOrg creates. We can help from there, via fine-grained analytics, which provide information on the right amount of calls, emails, and social contacts to make as well as the best time to execute those touchpoints.

You’ve got the Rainmaker Conference coming next week. What should people know about it, what will they get from it?

Rainmaker is the only conference in the entire world that is absolutely dedicated to the top-of-the-funnel modern sales professional – those tasked with converting prospects into qualified opportunities and filling the pipeline.

Our presenters aren’t speaking theoretically, they’re currently active in the trenches with massive top-of-the-funnel teams that get the best results. Plus aggressive, fast growth technology companies and their leaders will be in attendance. They’ll be telling stories about how they failed, what works, what doesn’t, and distilling those in ways enabling the audience to walk away with significant value so they can take their business to the next level.

The conference is also an opportunity to get up close and personal with our software and the new Sales Development Cloud. Plus, attendees can meet our partners and vendors who are changing the world of inside sales and sales development.

This year, we’ve got an amazing audience of senior leaders, along with some of the best speakers in the entire world, including Gary Vaynerchuk – a repeated best selling author, a hustler, an entrepreneur, and a worldwide phenomenon in terms of the motivational art of entrepreneurial speaking. With that, we believe we will host the best conference for the modern sales world.